“Note the inadvertent honesty in the headline - stop the scandals, not the cheating.”
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First thing that struck me as well.
That said, this whole No Child Left Behind merit-based “improvement” construct is a scam of the first order. Kind of like the sham “graduation rates” of certain NCAA athletic programs(See Georgetown University ThugBall program),
The one student aspect that has the closest correlation with academic performance is a quality home life, with parentS (plural emphasis) actively involved.
Not money.
Not “good schools”.
Not class size.
Not “quality” teachers.
That's right. Let me tell you, Asian students in my district are sitting at the same desks with the same books and the same teachers as the Hispanic ones. The difference is what happens when they go home. The Hispanic kids, by and large, go home, throw their backpack on the bed that mama made for them, grab some hot cheetos and settle down in front of the television while mama makes dinner and waits on them hand and foot. Especially the little boys. The little girls help with dinner. If you bring the parent into school to tell them the child is doing badly, they either shake their heads sadly and helplessly, or argue that you are being mean to their darling.
But Asian parents? Let me tell you, you could take a Sharpie and write an F on their kid's forehead and send the kid home. Asian mom will pull out a knife and tell the kid "You have 2 weeks turn that to B or I cut head off!!"
(Okay, mild exaggeration. Some stereotyping. But I'm tellin' ya...)